In November 1751, iron master and merchant John Potts entered into an indenture to purchase two tracts of land from Samuel McCall, Jr. and his wife Anne at the confluence of Manatawny Creek and the Schuylkill River. The one thousand acres had been part of a 14,000-acre tract once known as McCall's Manor. Potts secured full property rights on September 8, 1752, after paying £3000, named the place Pottsgrove, and soon began construction of a Georgian mansion completed in late 1753, reflecting the eminence the Potts family had attained by the mid-18th century. During his ownership, John Potts developed the land into a large working plantation, which by 1762 included a town of the same name that officially became Pottstown in 1815. John and his wife Ruth (Savage) had thirteen children, and the oldest son, Thomas, inherited Pottsgrove Manor after his father's death in 1768. Thomas sold the plantation in 1783 to Col. Francis Nichols, Chief Marshall of Pennsylvania. A succession of owners held the house until the 1930's, when in 1939 local citizens led by Marjorie Potts Wendell purchased the house with four surrounding acres and began restoring it. Ownership later passed to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which completed the restoration in 1952. Since a precedent setting transfer of jurisdiction in September 1988, the Manor has been maintained and administered by the Montgomery County Commissioners and The Department of History and Cultural Arts, and it has been restored and furnished to recreate the lifestyles and times of John Potts, his family, servants and slaves.
